


Coward

by Captain_Hope



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 14:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12134151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Hope/pseuds/Captain_Hope
Summary: Brave men don't make the choices he's made. They don't dread following their goal to the very end, no matter the cost.A short story for a dear friend.





	Coward

 

Severus never viewed himself as brave. Brave men do not make the choices he has made, do not make the same mistakes as he has and never once do they second guess the goal they fight for. Brave is far from what he is. There are other words- one in particular- that better describe him and hardly a day goes by when those words are whispered in his ear. Words whispered by students and colleagues alike, by enemies and people he might have thought friends if he were in a different life, words they didn’t care if he heard.

“Severus… _please_.” Crystal blue eyes shone with pain, whether from injuries or sympathy, Severus wasn’t sure though he suspected the former. After all, who would sympathize with him? A greasy haired, bitter, cold and cruel person who never appeared to care for anyone? Brave men don’t have to kill people they care for even if those people may not care for them. And he highly doubted that Albus, for all his wisdom, truly understood him.

How ironic, Severus thought bitterly, that the very person he hoped would help him, would end up asking for him to tear his own soul apart for the greater good without a thought of what it might do to him. And yet despite how angry he was at Albus for doing this to him, for failing to help or even understand him when he needed it most, Severus found he struggled to say the words. Albus staring pleadingly, Bellatrix practically giggling in his ear, Greyback watching hungrily (waiting for him to fail, no doubt) and Draco half-crying behind him, all waiting for him to pick his side.

“Avada Kedavra!” He shouted and he let the anger and his anguish combine as he did, forcing his face to contort into an ugly snarl. The green sparks hitting Albus square in the chest as he fell off the Astronomy Tower and for a fleeting moment, Severus wished it were him falling instead.

 

****

 

Months passed in a whirlwind that left Severus feeling more tense and scared than he’d ever felt in his whole life. It was almost comical to him by now that just when he felt things wouldn’t get worse, they did. The Carrows were teaching at Hogwarts, students were being tortured, people were dying and the staff loathed him more than before especially Minerva. Out of them all, Severus ached to know he had lost the little friendship he had with the woman, he missed their banter and her trust in him, now he had to contend with her anger and hatred and the obstacles she put in his way.

And still the same word was whispered and shouted at him, over and over again like a mantra until it danced in his head like a song and Severus wanted to scream at them all that he knew what he was, that he knows he isn’t nor will he ever be brave because brave people don’t have to kill their mentor and fight for the safety of the Wizarding World and wonder if it matters in the end, if it is even worth trying to help Lily’s child when he has to die anyway. Severus wonders if it was worth even trying to do good when he has never been welcomed on the side of the light anyway and he finds guilt bubbles in his gut for even wishing that he was not the one carrying this burden.

Brave men, he remembers being told, don’t think of those sort of wishes, they are selfish wishes after all.

 

***

 

Harry Potter is in the castle.

Severus knew as soon as the boy set foot in Hogsmeade that he’d be coming here. He feels the anxiety rise in his chest as his mark burns, it is almost time to go through the final steps to set the last of Albus’s plan in motion and he isn’t sure that he will even have the ability to get Potter to understand or listen to him.

But it doesn’t matter, he won’t be able to do it at Hogwarts and perhaps the boy will figure it out anyway as he has in the past. And finally, when Potter reveals himself, shouting at him to tell everyone how he killed Albus, Severus knows in the minute that he draws his wand and Minerva follows suit that his fate is sealed from here on out.

He feels his stomach cramp, sweat clustered in the palms of his hands and he held his wand as tightly as possible. He doesn't want to do this, doesn't bear to look up at Minvera's face, knowing the anger he'd see there. The utter disgust aimed at him and he ached at the knowledge that once upon a time, she'd looked at him with friendliness and trust; all that was left now was a betrayal. He forces himself to raise his wand somehow, brave men don't back from a fight they started.

Who told him what brave men did? He wondered, almost absentmindedly. Perhaps it was Albus, he had said many things about the difference between cowards and brave men. He always said Severus was not a coward but he had also said that Death Eaters would never enter Hogwarts whilst he was alive and look what had happened? Albus wasn't always right and he knew that better than most.

Severus and Minerva traded spells with a brutality rarely seen by most, somewhere along the way he managed to take out the Carrows. But he didn't have it in him to do the same to her, despite everything, he still saw her as a friend. He knew he'd forever be remembered as what everyone always said he was from the moment that he set foot on the Hogwarts train and he can’t say a word against it. So Severus does what they all expected him to do anyway. And as he flees, he hears Minerva shout the word that forever dances in his head.

 

“ ** _COWARD!_** ”


End file.
